Nightmare Night
Nightmare Night is the second studio album by the Clousedale synth band the ALPS, released on 10 July 2014. The album includes the title track and the previously released "Squid Melody", both transatlantic number-one singles for the band. The album's songs range in style from dubstep and ballad to tracks influenced by their voyage to the human world. Many of the songs on the album were written during the voyage in the early months of 2014. The group returned to Xat Studios in March with recording lasting through to June. The band was reported to have argued several times during the sessions over creative differences as they first returned, but by the end of the sessions, the group was "recording in harmony". The band reportedly struggled with their new-found fame after the release of Rainbow Factory, especially Naz. Naz's style shifted from the driving, hard sound heard on the previous album, to a more conventional sound, writing three ballads for the album. Meanwhile, Frosty wrote hard-hitting, heavier songs, such as "Sorry Jack". Critics called the shift between Frosty and Naz as "the poles shifting", but ended up "matching each other quite well". Nightmare Night reached number one on the charts in Equestria and has since been viewed by some critics as one of the greatest albums of the 2010s. Contents Musically, Nightmare Night eschews the synthrock songs of the band's previous album for a predominantly pop sound. One music reviewer observes "short, peppy" pop songs characterised by layered vocals, immediate choruses, and understated instrumentation. According to another music reviewer, the lack of synthrock from Naz allows listeners to "take the group's new sound purely on its own modernist terms", with audacious "chord choices", powerful harmonies, "gleaming" synth, and "human" influences. One music journalist writes that Naz and Frosty's songs were "more sophisticated musically" than before. Naz dominates the songwriting, being the primary author of six tracks on the album, compared to Frosty's three. Naz and Frosty also incorporated their old bandmate, Mic the Microphone, onto three tracks on the album. Naz, Frosty, and Rainbow Speed collaborated on "Lost On The Moon", another hit song from the album. Most of the songs for A Hard Day's Night were written during their voyage to the human world between January and March 2014. The voyage involved long periods of learning about the advancements in music – and also a chance, in Frosty's words, to "get away from everything". Both Frosty and Naz quickly re-engaged themselves in songwriting, often meeting "clandestinely in the afternoons in each other's rooms" to review their new work. "Regardless of what I was supposed to be doing," Naz would later recall, "I did write some of my best songs there." The stay in the human world proved especially fruitful for Rainbow Speed as a songwriter. The experience very much changed the ALPS' viewpoints, although these new viewpoints were not put into practice until later. Naz recalled: "I learned a treasure with the humans, I admire them. They taught me to play the guitar, and I had so many ideas revolving around it, but I was afraid the public wasn't quite ready for it. So I put it off until I became more experimental later on." However, Teal left after only ten days, and Frosty eventually grew bored and departed a month later. For Naz and Rainbow Speed, creativity turned to questioning when an electronics technician known as Magic Keyno suggested that unnamed humans were attempting to manipulate them. When he alleged that the humans had made sexual advances to mare attendees, a persuaded Rainbow Speed left abruptly just two months into the course. In anger, Frosty wrote a scathing song titled "Sorry Humans", renamed "Sorry Jack", including the lyric "date with his hand", one of the first uses of human anatomy in songwriting. Naz, however, stayed for the entirety of the course, and came back to Cloudsdale on March 1, 2014. Recording Nightmare Night was recorded between 2 March and 2 June 2014, largely at Xat Studios in Cloudsdale, with some sessions at Cloudsdale Studios. The group block-booked time at Xat Studios through to June, and their times were shaped around their touring commitments, with sessions occurring at irregular hours. The sessions for Nightmare Night marked the first appearance in the studio of the electric guitar. The instrument was used briefly by Naz on the song "Squid Melody, Part 1", but was not used to its full potential. The studio efforts on Nightmare Night captured the work of four increasingly individualised artists who frequently found themselves at odds. Several backing tracks do not feature the full group, and overdubs tended to be limited to whoever wrote the song. Sometimes Naz would record in one studio for prolonged periods of time, while Frosty would record in another, each one using different engineers. Their recording engineer had become disillusioned with the sessions. At one point, while recording "Building Worlds", he criticised Naz's lead vocal performance, to which Naz replied, "Well you come down and sing it" On 16 July, he announced that he was no longer willing to work with them and left. Frosty found Naz's songs "cloyingly sweet and bland", while Naz viewed Frosty's as "harsh, unmelodious and deliberately provocative". Frosty, Naz, and Speed's involvement in individual musical projects outside the band during 2013 was further evidence of the group's fragmentation. On 20 August, Frosty and Teal, working on overdubs for "Pinkie's Lie" in Studio 3, visited Naz in Studio 2, where he was working on "Heartmender". The positive spirit of the session disappeared immediately, and an engineer later claimed: "you could cut the atmosphere with a knife". On 22 August, during the session for "VIP Clouds", Teal abruptly left the studio, feeling that his role in the group was peripheral compared to the other members, and was upset at Naz's constant criticism of his drumming on the track. Xat staff later commented that Teal frequently turned up to the sessions and sat waiting in the reception area for the others to turn up. Frosty, Naz, and Speed pleaded with Teal to reconsider. He duly returned on 5 May to find his drum kit decorated with flowers, a welcome-back gesture from Naz. Naz described the point as a turning point for the Nightmare Night sessions. The group seemed to put their differences aside to record the final, grueling songs to complete the album before the deadline. Naz later commented, "we finally were working as a single unit for the first time in the making of the album, and all we needed was a threat of the band's end for that to happen." Songs Nightmare Night contains a wide range of musical styles, which resulted in the view of the album as the most diverse of any of the group's albums. The songwriting and playing style of Frosty and Naz shifted entirely from the previous album. Naz went for more soft sounds while Frosty went for hard, driving riffs and sounds. The shift in styles matched well, resulting in the album having a reputation for both the ALPS' most diverse album as well as their best album. 'Side one' The opening song was the first song written by Naz during their meditation retreat, "Nightmare Night, Part 1". The song was one of the softest songs on the album, perhaps giving the listener a false interpretation of a soft-sounding album. The song is about Princess Luna's highly important visit to Equestria after hundreds of years of being stuck on the moon. "Sorry Jack" was a marked change of style for the band. The song was the first to employ a light-sounding tone followed by a hard-sounding tone. The lyrics also contained the word "fuck" for the first time in commercial synthpop history, prompting an explicit warning on the cover of the album. Naz was against the usage of the word in the song, before totally embracing the usage of such words during the recording of "One Trick Pony". "Building Worlds" was one of the first ballads that Naz wrote for the ALPS. The song features a light piano sound that became common with Naz during this period. The album was almost titled after this song before a last minute change. "Fruits Of Her Labour" was written during the recording of Rainbow Factory, but was shelved for future use. This song has been praised for the unique synth work of Rainbow Speed and Naz. "Pinkie's Brew" was co-written by Rainbow Speed and Frosty. The song features one of the hardest synth riffs the ALPS ever recorded. The song was an example of Speed's widening variety of songwriting. "Nightmare Night, Part 2" was done as a remix by Frosty. The album has a theme of a remix coming before the last song of each side. "One Trick Pony" was co-written by Naz and Frosty as a thinly-veiled shot at Ken Ashcorp. Naz and Ashcorp were involved in a highly-publicised feud in early 2013. Naz criticised the lyrics of Ashcorp's hit "20 Percent Cooler", calling the lyrics "childish" and "reaching for rhymes". Ashcorp attempted to sue for defamation, which Naz promptly called Ashcorp "an idiot" for, which Ashcorp then replied, saying Naz was just a "one trick pony". Naz and Frosty teamed up to "take down" Ashcorp. 'Side two' "Squid Melody, Part 1" was written by Frosty after criticism from Naz for Frosty's lack of songwriting material. The lyrics tell about artistic freedom, and how all creators have "ups and downs". The song features the use of electric guitar from Naz for the first time on an ALPS record. Frosty's vocals are sped up dramatically to match the pace of the music. "Pinkie's Lie" is the first contribution from Teal, featuring synth work from the whole band as a backing track. The remix was pulled from Pinkie Pie's excerpt from an episode of "Friendship is Magic". "Heartmender" is another ballad from Naz, showing his softer side in full view. The song was also the shortest song he ever wrote for the ALPS. "She's A Pony" is another contribution from Teal, this time featuring a hard, driving sound from the rest of the band as a backing track. The vocals are again a remix from Pinkie Pie. "VIP Clouds" was co-written by all members of the band, and was led by Frosty. Displaying a marked hard and driving sound, the song was originally an instrumental before Teal remixed vocals from Fluttershy. "Squid Melody, Part 2" is a remix of Frosty's own song. With Part 1 being light, Part 2 is in direct contrast by being dark and "red". Naz was against the release of the song, but was overruled by the other three members. "Lost On The Moon" was co-written by Naz, Frosty and Rainbow Speed, with Speed providing the vocals. The song ended up being the most famous of any of the songs, retelling the story of Princess Luna and her voyage on the moon. Critical reception 'Contemporary reviews' On release, Nightmare Night gained highly favourable reviews from the majority of music critics. Others bemoaned its short length or found that the music lacked the adventurous quality that had distinguished Rainbow Factory. According to one music critic, "Rainbow Speed and Naz's resonant synth leads were hugely influential; the album helped persuade the Wyngs, then a pop group, to plunge all out into synthpop, and the Beatles would be hugely influential on the synth-rock explosion of 2014. The ALPS' success, too, had begun to open the Amareican market for fellow Cloudsdale bands, and inspired young Amareican groups, and others to mount a challenge of their own with self-penned material that owed a great debt to Naz-Frosty." In 2000, Q'' placed ''Nightmare Night at number five in its list of the 100 Greatest Cloudsdale Albums Ever. In 2016, Nightmare Night was voted 9th on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Track listing